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How social norms and situations affect us

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How social norms and situations affect us

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Chris' inability to feel comfortable in social environments continued to make the situation worse. Societal demands from being in a very masculine environment almost pressure Chris to act and  behave a certain way. Even as a young age because of their social abnormalities , they felt uncomfortable as a female. In result they experimented with boys and bond their chest. This included feeling uncomfortable in female clothes and deciding to wear male clothes and present as one as well. We also see this in Chris's father through attribution theory, this is due to their father believing that their daughters behaviors was caused by a teenage phase (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Contributed by Owen, Blaine, & Wayne

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In conclusion, Chris' life experiences have greatly contributed to her gender dysphoria. Growing up as one of the boys, having monogamous parents, and social norms have shaped the person Chris has become in college. Chris would be considered a non-conformist because the behaviors exhibited do not fall into agreement with social norms. Being a non-conformist does not mean that anything is mentally wrong with Chris. This can mean they have had cognitive dissonance since an early age. Cognitive Dissonance theory states that contradicting or inconsistent thoughts cause a discomfort of psychological thought. Chris was motivated to make their thoughts or attitudes to agree with their actions (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Contributed by Morgan and Elizabeth

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Coping is one of the most common reactions we as humans do in order to end a stressful situation. We see this in both problem focused coping in which one uses to correct and distress the situation and emotion focused coping which is when one focuses on their emotions in hopes of distressing.

In the case of people with gender dysphoria we see that coping is a huge part of their life as not many people are accepting of it even to this day, whether one is transgendered, gender dysphoric etc. In a study they collected 20 trans youth in hopes of studying their coping behaviors. This included 20 interviews that included them and their caregivers. Through this they were able to find 6 major coping related theme with 23 higher order categories (Budge, Belcourt, Conniff,  et al., 2018). The 6 main coping themes including negotiating gender, avoidance, emotional relief, personal solace, social support, and active engagement (Budge, Belcourt, Conniff, Parks, Pantalone, & Katz-Wise, 2018)

Contributed by Wayne, Morgan. Blaine, Owen, Elizabeth

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Growing up, Chris’ parents were not supportive of reassignment surgery. Though they “supported” Chris throughout the years with gender dysphoria, the father felt it was just a stage. This likely could cause Chris to develop low self-esteem because the father did not feel it was truly something Chris was or would deal with once out of adolescents. This also likely impacted Chris’ Moral Development (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019)

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Motivation, Emotions, and Personality

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Chris grew up primarily around male activity and male behavior which then conditioned Chris at a young age to draw closer to male emotion.
The Schema plays into the effects of the emotions and behaviors (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Blaine and Elizabeth

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Sigmund Freud's model of personality consists of three major mental structures. The first is id, which is present at birth. Id is irrational and impulsive because it works on the pleasure principle. The next structure is ego, meaning executive because this area decides how to direct the id. Lastly, the superego acts as a moral compass for the actions of the ego. It contains the conscience. In Chris' case it could be that the id is has more control than the other two structures, and therefore makes Chris more impulsive. This case of gender dysphoria could also have been caused by the psychosexual stages present in childhood. Freud believed that erotic urges in childhood have a lasting effect on development. Chris had an early sexual experience with another girl at the age of 9 (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Nature and nurture have been found to hold a large significance when it comes to the formation of the personality. Through twin study we see that roughly 50% of your personality is hereditary but the other 50% is effected by the environment around you. Using this information one can see that the environment being surrounded by Chris's father and brother gave a more masculine environment to grow in. We can also see this in the attempt to be perceived as more masculine by wrapping their chest and dressing more masculine as well. This is one of the many environments they could have been in, another would be that of college. Colleges are more known for being accepting of sexuality and gender identity than that of a standard household or high schools, this environment would also allow them to express themselves more. We also see in their personality that they preferred that of a monogamous relationship, this will be an environment induced by the parents relationship in the household. Lastly we can see that Chris wasn't as worried over their own personality and gender due to both parents expressing that they loved Chris more than they worried about them (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Personality theories are used to explain personality. These include trait, psychodynamic, humanistic, and behaviorist theories. In the case of Chris, there have been problems in their development, as they had a conflict in gender identity. Barriers to personal growth is explained in each theory. Trait theory includes unhealthy traits, psychoanalytic theory includes unconscious conflicts and fixations, humanistic theories include conditions of worth and incongruence, and behaviorist theories include maladaptive habits and unhealthy environments. These can be applied to Chris, as they left bruises on their body because of their conflict with their self-image. Chris also may have felt like they were not worth as much as other people, because of this self-image conflict, along with their experience growing up with their brother. Chris's conflict with identity has clearly had an impact on their personality (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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In their stage of development, adolescents are often met with an identity crisis. For this reason, many teens may feel like they do not belong to the gender assigned with their sex. This can be seen as "just a phase," and this is exactly what we see in case of Chris. When the parents found out about the situation, the mother supported Chris while the father insisted it was just a phase. Because adolescents go through this identity crisis, sexual reassignment surgery, along with hormone replacement and other permanent alterations, may make unnecessary changes to the child, and this has led to the debate as to whether adolescents should be able to go through these permanent changes. (Manners, 2009).
This goes with psychosocial growth heavily seen in stage 4-6. This is the period where many people begin to form their own identity starting roughly in stage 4 where one begins to learn industry and inferiority. Most of the identity is formed in stage 5 when one is roughly 12-19, this is usually the confusing stage where one truly begins to come into their own person. This is also about the age when many people begin experimenting with who they are and what they want. It is common for people to go through different phases at this time but many people find their identity and these phases create who they are (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Collaborated between Owen and Wayne

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Development has a lot to do with Chris' views. For instance, Chris comes from a normal family where the parents are together. Therefore, Chris believes in monogamous relationships. This is nature. Nurture would be considered by how their parents interacted with them. The way they nurtured Chris as a child created these tomboyish actions and possibly lead to Chris' views on the body. The childhood is important because of the sensitive period present.   This created a period of "emerging adulthood" where the crisis grew more as Chris reached adulthood. The contribution from an unstable support system and the surrounding environment play a role in this crisis. The way the parents support Chris as an adult, but disagree with physical changes also has an effect on Chris' gender dysphoria (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Collaborated between Blaine and Morgan

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Development and Identity

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In youth it is common to imitate and model oneself off of parents or model figures. Chris had a closer connection with their father and brother, in doing so modeled themselves after their father. One can see this in how they started using male pronouns at an early age and experimenting with girls. This could be something modeled off of general male behavior that they could have learned through Observational learning (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Collaboration between Wayne and Blaine

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Chris obviously had some pent up aggression regarding how their father treated them differently than their brothers. The fact that Chris remembers specific details about basketball with the boys and how it changed as they aged supports that they may have episodic memory. Chapter 7 states that unless a memory is important, it is easily forgotten. Therefore, this basketball memory is deemed important in their life and transition to adulthood (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

Collaborated between Morgan, Elizabeth, and Owen.

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Learning and Memory

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Budge, S. L., Belcourt, S., Conniff, J., Parks, R., W. Pantalone, D., & Katz-Wise, S. L. (2018).  A grounded theory study of the development of trans youths’ awareness of coping with gender identity. Journal of Child & Family Studies (27)9. p3048-3061 DOI:  10.1007/s10826-018-1136-y

Coon, Mitterer, & Martini. (2019). Introduction into psychology.  Cengage.

Manners, P.J.. (2009). Gender identity disorder in adolescennce: A review of literature. Child & Adolescent Mental Health (14)2. p62-68. DOI:  10.1111/j.1475-3588.2008.00498.x

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Perspectives are learned through a mix of emotions, stimuli, culture and many more. In Chris's case, their perspective towards a gender change was influenced by their parents. Neither their mom or dad wanted them to go through the surgery so they have yet to commit to the surgery (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Brain & Memory.
Sensation and Perception

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Hormones are the cause of many internal changes, as well as behaviors. A proper hormone balance is crucial for normal development. Chris, of course, did not grow up a normal child. With behaviors and emotions that differed greatly from those around them, it would be no surprise if they had hormone imbalances that caused or influenced their conflict with gender identity (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Self Regulation is rooted here where critical and higher levels of thinking and ones abaility to show self control and disipline (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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This can promote better decision making skills, decrease impulsivity, becoming antisocial and better both personal and professional life and well being (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Chris had a poor relationship and communication system with family during the crisis. Ineffective communication led to an indecisive situation, which drew out and prolonged the crisis. If Chris had effective communication it would have allowed for  clarity, resolved problems, and create better relationships, etc (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Can be improved in life, and is a way to practice self discipline when you are tempted, under pressure and stress or working towards goals. But, should be taught during childhood years (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Queen and David Bowie - Under Pressure (Official Video)

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Chris used psychological methods to decrease the amount of pain they felt when wrapping their breasts. In chapter 4 it discusses how pain tolerance can be used to decrease anxiety. Chris was clearly in pain bc the study says that they would have bruises from the bandages. But the pain was bearable for them bc they trained their brain that they must do this in order to feel good about themselves (Coon, Mitterer, & Martini, 2019).

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Christine (Chris, Morty) Morton is a 21 year old college senior who Is in an internal conflict of gender identity or gender dysphoria.